John Cheever

There's plenty of great literature about infidelity. But there's a whole lot of not-so-great literature as well. It's a basic fall-back plot device for just about everyone who wants to write a novel. And I say enough.

Artists are attempting to find something through the maintenance of a practice but what is a politician or leader trying to find? The answer is usually a series of intelligent decisions that lead his country out of a quagmire.

Early reader? Let's just say that had the word had currency in the L.A. of the Fifties, I'd have been the girl with the big dictionary on her lap trying to find "dyslexia." Since I couldn't read it'd never have occurred to me that I'd become a writer.

A dentist Ray Testa, who is 58, leaves his wife Angie, to run off with his 31year-old hygienist, Shelby. At the wedding he announces: "I now belong to an incredibly exclusive club. There are not many men who can say that they're older than their father-n-law."

My NYU grad students and I presented our collaborative film Tar at the Rome Film Festival. What they accomplished is fairly unprecedented and hasn't been done by any group of students at any film school. At least as far as I know, and I teach at a bunch of them.

In the late '70s, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing the red cover of The Stories of John Cheever the Pulitzer Prize winning collection of the writer's stories that had been delighting readers of The New Yorker for decades.

A few years ago it was announced that Justin Cronin's next project would be a vampire novel. Many readers found it difficult to believe. In honor of its paperback release, I spoke with Justin last week.

This summer, I'm thinking Reading Lite. An iced drink, (make mine an Arnold Palmer). A cool breeze. A careful application of sunscreen. A thin book, so I can get through it and still grab some zzzs. Books like these.